Back to Reality
by bluesimageburgundy
Summary: Bamon fic. Season 6. Damon visits Bonnie for the first time since her return.


Damon wasn't sure how or why, but he'd found his way to Bonnie Bennett's porch. He took two steps up and something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. There on the ground, wrapped up in a fluffy ivory comforter was a little witch. He raised an eyebrow at the tiny, solitary figure and began to walk toward it. She didn't look up as his boots clamped against the wooden boards of the porch. He walked past her to sit wordlessly on the swing that hung from the ceiling.

Bonnie, having died one too many times to care about school right now, had opted not to stay with Elena and Caroline. So they had procured her a little cottage right off of campus. Not too far. But far enough. She'd been back for a week now, but this was the first time Damon had darkened her door. What she didn't know, was that he had walked past her road a few times this week already and considered it. He took a lot of walks these days to clear his mind. And in the blank spaces of his mind was this desire to walk toward Bonnie's house. He tried not to question why it was he felt drawn to her.

He watched Bonnie as she sipped a cup of peppermint tea and flipped through a spell-book. She still hadn't spoken, so he took the initiative.

"Hey Judgy, what's with the blanket and the silence? It's kinda creepy."

Bonnie looked up and smiled then, the sight of her bright eyes and smile stirring something inside of Damon that worried him.

"I'm just cold. Ever since I got back, I'm just...always cold."

Damon listened and nodded slowly, looking out over the front yard, "Yeah, ever since we got back from eternal 90s summer, I'm finding it a little hard to adjust myself." He wasn't talking about the change in temperature, and judging by the understanding look on her face, Bonnie knew that.

"So, what kind of spell are you brewing up there?" Damon asked, indicating the open spell-book, "Something to get me back to my house and my bourbon, I hope."

Bonnie rolled her eyes.

"I'm trying to figure out a way to get Kai back where he belongs," she explained, obviously concerned.

Damon was less so. So Kai had slipped back through along with Bonnie. It seemed like a fair price to pay to have her back. But Bonnie, being Bonnie, was worried about the consequences of him being free.

"Don't you ever take a day off from saving the world, Judgy?" Damon asked, the unspoken request being for her to relax, to rest, to take some time for herself for a change.

"Someone's gotta do it," Bonnie answered with a tired smile, obviously beginning to realize that she was the hero here. Something Damon had realized a long time ago. Long before she had sacrificed herself to get him back. He was just glad now she'd managed to get home. The guilt had started to eat away at him. He hadn't forgotten what she'd done though. None of the things she'd done for all of them through the years.

Damon hid his admiration with a snide, "Geesh, and I thought STEFAN had a bad case of Hero Hair."

Bonnie giggled. And suddenly it felt like they were back in 1994 Mystic Falls. Back when the entire world was just them. And, even when they said it was, it never seemed like Hell. Hell could never feel so calm, so settled, and right. Realizing their eyes were still connected, Bonnie looked away shyly and sipped her tea.

The unspoken words hanging in the air were Elena and Jeremy. They both had questions about these relationships, but neither Damon nor Bonnie knew how to start up that conversation. So they didn't.

Bonnie shivered. Damon resisted the urge to wrap her more tightly in her blanket.

"Invite me in, Bon Bon," he said, standing from the porch swing, "I'll make you some lunch."

"Damon..." Bonnie said, with playful warning in her voice.

"I KNOW how much you've been missing my vamp cakes," he teased, following her to the doorstep and watching as she crossed.

She discarded her blanket on the couch and walked back to the threshold. She looked at him in the playful but cautious way that she did. He smiled at her with that lopsided smile that she would swear was reserved solely for her.

Bonnie sighed deeply and tossed her hands up in defeat.

"Let's get awkward," she said, mimicking some of his final words to her before she sent him home, and extended her hand through the door to him in invitation. Damon smiled as he took her hand and walked inside, realizing that this was them both consenting to continue their relationship, whatever it was, now that they were back to reality. And he realized that some part of him that had felt hollow since he'd left her, in this moment, didn't feel quite so hollow.

"But no vamp cakes!" she scolded with a wagging finger as she walked toward the kitchen.

Damon argued playfully and followed her as the door closed behind them.


End file.
